Few issues are more guaranteed to exercise parents of school-age children than the price of holidays. When an e-petition was launched drawing attention to their inflated costs during the school vacation compared with term time, more than 160,000 signed up. A separate petition calling on the Government to drop its recently introduced ban on parents taking their children away during term time, save in “exceptional circumstances”, also received substantial support.

Instinctively, the idea that a parent should be criminalised for wanting to take a child out of school for a week feels excessively draconian and nanny-statist. This used to be a matter for the discretion of the head teacher in discussion with the parents, who should be perfectly able to make this decision provided their children are performing well and have an exemplary attendance record. On the other hand, a clear and unambiguous prohibition is helpful to teachers who would otherwise come under intense pressure to agree to let the pupil go.

What is needed is a more pragmatic approach. The cost of holidays at peak periods when the schools are out is a simple reflection of supply and demand, and no pressure on airlines or tour operators will change that. But a practical measure suggested by several MPs in a debate in the Commons last night is for far greater regional flexibility in holiday dates.

Rather than everyone taking the same weeks off in August – an agrarian hangover from a time when children were needed for the harvest – school holidays could vary from county to county or even region to region. Moreover, the dates could be rotated to ensure fairness. Such flexibility would increase demand during what is now the off-season and lower costs all round for an important feature of modern family life.